Despite half of the teams dropping out and losing Valve’s support, the Galaxy Battles II LAN Finals is finally about to start. From what was supposed to be a week-long event, we’re now left with a 3-day double-elimination format between eight Dota 2 teams, including the wild card, amateur Dota 2 team PG.Barracx from Indonesia.

With roughly around 24 hours left before the start of the Galaxy Battles II LAN Finals, let’s take a look at the different matchups and try to predict how each one will play out.

TNC Pro Team vs Team Spirit (11:00 GMT +8)

One’s arguably the second-best Dota 2 team in Southeast Asia, the other is a fringe contender in a CIS region where only Natus Vincere and Virtus Pro have proven themselves successful against international competition. Though TNC Pro Team vs Team Spirit have yet to meet this season, each team’s respective performance clearly favours the hometown heroes.

Betting:TNC Pro Team have already proven that they can out-davai Virtus Pro. Their 2-0 win against the CIS bears at the MDL Macau Minor playoffs may have come with a caveat, but a win is a win. Barring an unlikely upset, Team Spirit should be the first team to find themselves half-way out of the tournament in the lower brackets.

Infamous vs VGJ.Thunder (11:00 GMT +8)

Infamous are perhaps the best Dota 2 team in South America. Or, at the very least, they are right up there with SG e-sports. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean much against VGJ.Thunder, who, despite being one of the “weaker” teams in China, are simply the better team. Liu ‘Sylar ‘Jiajun remains as spectacular as ever and Bai ‘rOtK‘ Fan is just as brilliant as a coach as he was as a player.

Evil Geniuses vs PG.Barracx (14:00 GMT +8)

Can a matchup be more one-sided? Evil Geniuses, who despite their recent struggles remain the best Dota 2 team in North America and top 10 worldwide, are too stacked of a team for PG.Barracx to face off against in their first international LAN. No offense to the wild card team, but save for Evil Geniuses throwing the game intentionally, it’s hard to see them losing this early.

Betting: Evil Geniuses all the way. It’d be huge a surprise if PG.Barracx somehow found a way to take even a game off.

OG vs paiN Gaming (14:00 GMT +8)

Under normal circumstances, OG should win this series by a mile. However, both teams are playing with stand-ins and we don’t know just how well OG will gel with Maurice ‘KheZu‘ Gutmann playing on the offlane and Sébastien “7ckngMad” Debs buying space as the team’s “sacrificial” carry. The same goes for paiN Gaming, who could easily make a deep run on the backs of Aliwi ‘w33‘ Omar, one of the most mechanically skilled Dota 2 players in the world.

Betting: The outcome of this series essentially falls on how well Roman ‘Resolut1on‘ Fominok will do against his former teammates w33 in the middle lane. If w33 synergizes well with the rest of paiN Gaming (and that is a big if) and gets a head of steam early on, OG could very well find themselves playing from the lower brackets.

Day 1 of the Galaxy Battles II LAN Finals will kick off at 11:00 (GMT + 8:00) tomorrow, January 19, with two matches happening simultaneously.

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